When looking for audio equipment for the venue, club director Pete Winkelman - a former record-company executive who owns the nearby Great Linford Manor Studios - sought advice from two old friends in the music industry, audio consultant Gary Garner and Metallica sound engineer "Big Mick" Hughes. Hughes admits to "not having the slightest interest" in football, but stresses that "just because you're in another world, doesn't mean you should walk away from good sound."
Through the auspices of Hughes and Garner, as well as Taylor, Mich.-based rental company and long-time Meyer Sound user Thunder Audio, a weather-protected Meyer Sound system was chosen. The distributed system includes 38 UPA-1P loudspeakers and 38 of the narrow coverage equivalent UPA-2P loudspeakers, augmented by 16 600-HP subwoofers. The loudspeakers are flown from the stadium's steel infrastructure using custom brackets specially made for the project by the installer, Nottinghamshire-based VCP Services. The UPAs are arranged in pairs, with the subs mounted on their original brackets and positioned between each pair.
"The system at Stadium MK is quite simply the best I have heard," says VCP owner Vincent Clamp, who has been the main audio contractor in many stadium projects. As well as the sound, VCP was also responsible for implementing the security and CCTV systems at the venue, using a CobraNet infrastructure to integrate the Meyer Sound enclosures with the stadium's paging and emergency evacuation system.
Pete Winkelman adds: "This is all about the customer experience. This city has no tradition of professional football. How do you get people out of their living rooms? You do it by refusing to compromise, and the Meyer Sound system is a part of that."
(jim Evans)
